Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: jimmy carter

Showing posts with label jimmy carter. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Jimmy Carter twists words of UNSC 242 in NYT op-ed

Jimmy Carter wrote yet another tendentious op-ed for, who else, the New York Times.

The first paragraphs show yet again that he is simply a liar.

We do not yet know the policy of the next administration toward Israel and Palestine, but we do know the policy of this administration. It has been President Obama’s aim to support a negotiated end to the conflict based on two states, living side by side in peace.

That prospect is now in grave doubt. I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short. The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.

Back in 1978, during my administration, Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin, and Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, signed the Camp David Accords. That agreement was based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which was passed in the aftermath of the 1967 war. The key words of that resolution were “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every state in the area can live in security,” and the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

The agreement was ratified overwhelmingly by the Parliaments of Egypt and Israel. And those two foundational concepts have been the basis for the policy of the United States government and the international community ever since.

The words "key words" links to a UN publication that also says that there were two main points to the resolution - but not the ones Carter says.

The resolution stipulated that the establishment of a just and lasting peace should include the application of two principles:
✹ Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; and
✹ Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

The part that Carter quotes about "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" was not from the operative part of the resolution, but from the preamble - which has no legal standing. And the part that he ignores is the part that was meant to say that the final borders would be the result of negotiations, not the 1949 armistice lines.

So Carter spins a double lie: one is that he elevates a meaningless preamble phrase to importance it doesn't have, and he ignores the phrase that insists that Israel's neighbors (which do not include the Palestinians, who are not mentioned at all in the resolution) allow Israel to have secure borders, which it most certainly didn't have before 1967. That is why the language doesn't call for Israel to withdraw from all territories - but to create a border that would allow it to be secure from attack, borders that would be negotiated with its neighbors.

Also, the text he links to mentions this fact that he ignores: the PLO strongly rejected UN 242 at the time.

This is what 242 says. The drafters of the resolution from the US and UK are unanimous in this interpretation. Carter, however, pretends that UNSC 242 says that all Israeli communities beyond the artificial 1949 armistice lines - that were never secure nor recognized - are illegal. And he is including the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem! (Carter counts all Jerusalem residents across the Green Line to be living there illegally.)

242 also says that, even if you do recognize a new entity called "Palestine" in part of the territories, that state must acknowledge Israel's right to live in peace. Given that Fatah, which dominates the PLO which controls the Palestinian Authority, explicitly says that violence is an acceptable form of "resistance," clearly Israel's Arab neighbors do not accept that clause that is indeed one of the main parts of 242 that Carter ignores.

There's plenty more that Carter twists in the op-ed, but really, when he lies as far as what the two main points of 242 are, he's already proven to be a liar.

After January 20, we will have another ex-president who will have free rein to make up anti-Israel lies in op-ed pages.

The New York Times yet again shows that it allows anti-Israel op-ed writers to not be subject to basic fact checks.

(h/t David B)

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No one showed up to protest Carter at Cardozo. No one.

Not one single protester showed up to Cardozo to express outrage that Jimmy Carter was receiving an award.

A few disappointed counter-protesters were there, however, with nothing to counter-protest:

There was a small crowd of reporters and curious students there as well.

Meanwhile, other Jewish organizations expressed their outrage. Too bad they couldn't actually send anyone there and get guaranteed publicity to focus on Carter's terrible record. Even YU's own Zionist clubs couldn't muster a contingent.

The alumni who promised to physically block Carter? Nowhere to be found.

This was most disappointing.

I haven't yet heard anything about the speech, or questions asked in the ceremony itself. But from everything I can see, Cardozo's dean arranged things to minimize the chances for anything embarrassing to happen from the very start, so I'm certain the questions asked were pre-screened to put a sunny face on the debacle.

YU/Cardozo update - Carter gave anti-semitic Bible lessons, NYT coverage, more

The story made The New York Times:

When editors of The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, a scholarly publication from the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, decided to bestow this year’s International Advocate for Peace award on former President Jimmy Carter, they sought to honor his decades as a mediator and humanitarian. But in the process, they ignited a sizable conflict of their own.

That is because Cardozo is a part of Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish institution where support for the state of Israel runs high. And among supporters of Israel, there are few figures more controversial than Mr. Carter, who has repeatedly criticized Israeli policy toward Palestinians and described their circumstances as apartheid.

...“Part of being a law school is being an open and diverse community with a cacophony of ideas which people are free to express,” Dr. Diller said Tuesday. But, he added, “we are part of a Jewish institution and we stand for Jewish values and commitments, and part of that is support for Israel.”

Brian Farkas, the editor in chief of The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, said that the decision to honor Mr. Carter had been mischaracterized.

He said he had spent the morning engaged in “respectful” discussion with members of the Jewish Law Students Association, and that plans were in the works for a future event that would offer differing perspectives on Mr. Carter’s work.

He added that Mr. Carter, who was not available for comment, had agreed to take questions from students after his address on Wednesday afternoon.

Perhaps one of the students can ask Carter about his Sunday school lessons that were first revealed by Phyllis Chesler):

As decades-old tapes from his Church Sunday school lessons reveal, former President Jimmy Carter’s bias against the Jewish state may come more from an old fashioned Christian animus toward Judaism than from concerns over the situation of Palestinians. Carter taught Christian students in Plains Georgia that Judaism teaches Jews to feel superior to non-Jews, that Jewish religious practices are tricks to enhance wealth, and that current Israeli policy toward Palestinians is based on these “Jewish” values and practices.

In a series of sermons Carter recorded between 1999 and 2003 that were published as a CD set by Simon and Schuster called “Sunday Mornings in Plains,” Carter attacks modern Israel by retreading ancient anti-Semitic tropes that go back to the early church fathers and the Judaism/Christianity schism that gave birth to a millennia of Christian persecution of Jews.

1. Jews hate and feel superior to non-Jews: In the tapes, one hears -- in Southern drawl -- his ancient animus: Jews hate non-Jews:

“…this morning I’m gonna be trying to relate the assigned Bible lesson to us in the Uniformed Series with how that affected Israel and how it affects us through Christ personally… It’s hard for us to even visualize the prejudice against gentiles when Christ came on earth. If a Jew married a gentile, that person was considered to be dead. … How would you characterize from a Jew’s point of view the uncircumcised? Non believer? And what? Unclean, what? They called them DOGS! That’s true. … What was Paul’s feeling toward gentiles in his early life as a Jewish leader? [Paul was not a Jewish leader. Ed.] Anybody? Absolute commitment to persecution! To the imprisonment and even the execution of non-Jews who now professed faith in Jesus Christ. … We know the differences in the Middle East. But the differences there are between Jews on the one hand who comprise the dominating force both militarily and also politically and the Palestinians who are both Muslim and Christians. …”

2. Jewish ritual sacrifice is a dodge that relieves one from taking care of one’s parents, while preserving one’s wealth:

“Corban was a uh prayer that could be performed by usually a man in an endorsed ceremony by the Pharisees that you could say in effect, ‘God, everything that I own all these sheep all these goats this nice house and the money that I have, I dedicate to you, to God.’ And from then on according to the Pharisees law those riches didn’t belong to that person anymore. They were whose? God’s! So as long as those riches were belonged to the person, that person was supposed to share them with needy parents right? But once it was God’s it wasn’t theirs and they didn’t have anything to share with their parents. So with impunity, and approved by the Pharisaic law, they could avoid taking care of their needy parents by a trick that had been evolved by the incorrect and improper interpretation of the law primarily designed by religious leaders to benefit whom? The rich folks! The powerful people! Because the poor man wouldn’t have all of this stuff to give to God. He would probably, in fact he might very well have his parents in the house with him or still be living with his own parents.”

3. Carter ties this Jewish feelings of superiority and religious malevolence to current Israeli policy:

“One reason is that the Israeli government headed now by Netanyahu has to depend on the ultra-right or fundamentalist Jews to give them a majority in the parliament which they call the Knesset, and the recent resignation of foreign minister Levy has left Netanyahu with only one vote margin in the parliament. So the ultra-conservative Jewish leaders demand always that they have total control over anything that relates to religion inside Israel, in particular in Jerusalem. Well, I’m not here to condemn anyone but to point out that even within ourselves, there is an inclination for, I’d say, a feeling of superiority. Wouldn’t you think so? Would you agree? I know I have it.”

Carter’s beef with the Jews is not simply a disagreement over how Israel should treat the Palestinians. His is a deep theological hatred of the type that most Christians (including the Vatican in the 1960s Nostra Aetate) have long disavowed. This is not the “new anti-Semitism: it’s the old. All the more indefensible for an orthodox Jewish religious institution to give this man an award.

As I've said in the past, I am reluctant to call people anti-semitic without serious proof. This is damning. (In the partial transcript, which I unfortunately can no longer find online but which was emailed to me, Carter at one point criticizes biblical Judah - but calls it "Israel.")

Carter's admitting his own feeling of superiority and self-righteousness is accurate, at least. After all, he calls his group of crotchety yentas "The Elders" (without the irony that some others might employ in using that title.)

Here is his wonderful group being used as a prop by Hamas underneath a huge poster showing a map where Israel doesn't exist.

That same group happily attended an anti-Israel protest a couple of years back that effectively meant that Carter and his fellow "conflict resolution" peers agreed that Israel's legal system is illegitimate.

Is part of "conflict resolution" to allow yourself to be used by extremists on one side - or to openly embrace one side?

I am told that my protest posters will be distributed by at least one group at Cardozo today. If anyone takes photos or video, I'd appreciate it!

Posters for Jimmy Carter protests at Cardozo

If anyone who plans to protest needs a poster...there's a Kinko's at Union Square.

If you don't know what a Gharqad tree is, you need to read the Hamas charter.

Jimmy Carter called Hafez Assad "a close personal friend" soon after 1982 Hama massacre

In February, 1982, Syria's president Hafez al-Assad murdered between 30-40,000 people in the city of Hama.

A year later, in March 1983, Jimmy Carter referred to the mass murderer as "a close personal friend" who he has a "special relationship" with. He expressed the hope that if Assad would come to the negotiating table, he could be on the same side as the Egyptians, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Americans in pressuring - Israel.

All of this was recorded in New York Magazine, June 6, 1983, and verified by Carter's friend and advisor, Kenneth Stein, who would later famously break with Carter over the lies he wrote in his 2006 book.

(h/t Ken Kelso)

Video: Jimmy Carter blowing off Noam Shalit in 2010

I had never seen this before.

What a humanitarian, huh?

(h/t Lauri)

Carter at YU/Cardozo media update

After being pretty much my own story for days, this is finally getting some legs:

YU issued a fairly predictable statement:

...President Carter’s presence at Cardozo in no way represents a university position on his views, nor does it indicate the slightest change in our steadfastly pro-Israel stance.

That said, Yeshiva University both celebrates and takes seriously its obligation as a university to thrive as a free marketplace of ideas, while remaining committed to its unique mission as a proud Jewish university.

Richard M. Joel

President and Bravmann Family University Professor

Times of Israel blogpost by Jonathan Feldstein:

[D]id anyone at YU or Cardozo read the section of Carter’s book where he sanctions terrorism against Israelis? Carter is clear, and deliberate, when he writes, “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.” Rather than decrying Arab and Islamic terrorism, Carter actually sanctions terrorism against Israelis, albeit based on Carter’s own twisted and dishonest version of reality.

Washington Free Beacon:

“I can’t imagine a worse candidate for any kind of a human rights award,” Harvard law professor and pro-Israel author Alan Dershowitz told the Washington Free Beacon Monday. “He has more blood on his hands than practically any other president.”

Carter, author of the controversial book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, has met with the terrorist group Hamas and rallied against Israel on the international stage, providing much fodder for the Jewish state’s fiercest critics.

“He has encouraged terrorism and violence by Hamas and Hezbollah,” Dershowitz said, who dubbed the school’s desire to award Carter as “immoral.”

Carter “has done more harm to the cause of human rights than anyone I can think of,” Dershowitz said. “It’s a terrible, terrible choice.”

Breitbart.com and WND.com

Jewish News - JNS.org

American Thinker:

After the Holocaust, the world finally recognized the Jewish people's historical and Biblical ties to the Holy Land. Israel won its first war, its War of Independence and the Jewish State was reborn. Israel has been attacked from all borders, demonized by all cultures, and fights for its survival daily. And less than seven decades later, Yeshiva University's The Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School is presenting an award to the most anti-Israel president since Israel's founding.

National Review Online:

Major Jewish institutions show a marked propensity to promote and celebrate the enemies of Israel and even anti-Semites. Here are some examples, working backwards chronologically:

Cardozo Law School of Yeshiva University: Plans to give its International Advocate for Peace Award is going to Jimmy Carter, author of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, on April 10.

The Forward:

Enraged alumni have threatened to physically block Jimmy Carter from entering Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, where he is due to receive a peace award on April 10.

Daniel Rubin, 62, said about a dozen former alumni are planning an act of civil disobedience to prevent Carter, a harsh critic of Israeli policies on the occupied West Bank, from picking up the International Advocate for Peace Award, given annually by Cardozo’s Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Rubin said former alumni would use their knowledge of the building layout to outmaneuver any attempts to stop them.

“Mr. Carter ain’t going to get anywhere,” Rubin said.

“There’s no reason for a school that has any sense of Jewish integrity to have a guy like that around,” he added.

And a Jewish Press followup, an interview with Alan Dershowitz as well.

From The Jewish Press:

Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law is scheduled to present former U.S. president
Jimmy Carter with the “International Advocate for Peace” Award this Wednesday, April 10.

The award is being presented by the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution. The law school administration has insisted – through a statement issued by a public relations firm – it was a choice made by the students. Sources have suggested the opposite is the case.

In what appeared to be an effort to distance themselves from the award and the event, at least to those complaining, some concerned individuals were told “on good assurance” that neither Cardozo’s Dean Diller nor YU’s President Joel would be present at the award ceremony, and that they were completely uninvolved.

As a letter obtained by The Jewish Press that was sent by Dean Diller to certain “high roller” alumni inviting them to the event made clear, however, Diller plans to be front and center at the event.

“Today, I am particularly pleased and honored to invite you,” wrote Dean Diller, “to a very special afternoon with President Jimmy Carter on April 10, 2013 at 3:30 pm.” Diller closed the letter by telling the big givers he hoped they would “plan to join me in welcoming the 39th President of the United States to the law school.”

When he found out about the award, Cardozo alumnus Gary Emmanuel decided to act. He gathered other alumni and concerned individuals to form the group “The Coalition of Concerned Cardozo Alumni.” When they looked at Carter’s “lifetime of work,” they saw something very different from what was expressed in Cardozo’s official statement. The CCCA also created a website, Shame On Cardozo for Honoring Jimmy Carter, on which Carter is described as having a history of “anti-Israel bigotry.”

In the four days since Carter’s Cardozo award became public, on April 4, emails and Twitter blasts have been ricocheting around the Internet. Most have been highly critical of the pending honor. In addition, alumni and others interested have sent letters of protest to Richard Joel, the President of Yeshiva University, and to Matthew Diller, the Dean of Cardozo School of Law.

A 1991 Cardozo graduate who practices in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, Seth Goodman Park, said he responded immediately upon hearing about the Carter award presentation. Park wrote to his alma mater that Carter was “undeserving of the honor.” He acknowledged that the former president had achieved some progress in the 1970′s, but since then Carter has been “counterproductive and divisive.” In his letter to Dean Diller, Park also wrote:

I believe that there is no greater living enemy to progress in achieving further peace in the Middle East than Mr. Carter whose work, particularly over the past two decades, to demonize one of the parties to the conflict while coddling and martyring the other has led to hate and misunderstanding. His work is the very antithesis of proper diplomacy.

Another alumnus who was the 2007 executive editor of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, thinks the choice of Carter as an honoree to be an “inappropriate, offensive” one.

“If he was simply left-wing, I could fully support, or at least not object to the decision to honor Mr. Carter, Avi Davis wrote to Dean Diller and President Joel. “However, because his idea of ‘peace’ is the evisceration of Israel as a Jewish state and the elevation of the terrorist organization Hamas, I can not see how Cardozo and YU can support this decision.”

Davis wrote that if he were still executive editor of the Journal he would have objected to the decision to honor Carter, and if that failed to change it, “I would have resigned my position.”

I have also been hearing rumors that the main push behind the award was not the student editors of the Journal of Conflict Resolution , but the administration at Cardozo itself. This article seems to confirm at least some of that.

By the way, this is a good time to read an article written by the former executive director of the Carter Center about the lies he wrote in his book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."

There may be a protest organized by current YU students on Wednesday; I will publish the details when I get them.

New website "Shame on Cardozo" for honoring Jimmy Carter at YU

A new website, ShameOnCardozo.com, has been set up to show outrage that the Yeshiva University law school invited Jimmy Carter to accept an award this week:

A Message To Cardozo Alumni
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013, Jimmy Carter will be honored at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, part of Yeshiva University, to receive the International Advocate for Peace Award from the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Jimmy Carter has an ignominious history of anti-Israel bigotry. He is responsible for helping to mainstream the antisemitic notion that Israel is an apartheid state with his provocatively titled book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”, the publication of which prompted mass resignations from the Carter Center. He has met numerous times with leaders of the terror group Hamas whitewashing their genocidal goals and undermining US efforts to isolate Hamas. And Carter’s record of slandering Israel is so voluminous that both CAMERA and Alan Dershowitz have written books refuting his lies.

It is simply unconscionable for a Jewish affiliated school to honor someone who has played such a high profile role in demonizing the Jewish state.

We therefore urge you to condition any continued support of Cardozo, be it financial or otherwise, on the cancellation of this event.

Please also take 2 minutes out of your busy schedules to contact the Dean of Cardozo and President of Yeshiva University to express your outrage. Contact details are below.
Professor Matthew Diller, Dean of Cardozo: Tel – 212-790-0310; Email – mdiller@yu.edu

Professor Richard Joel, President of Yeshiva University: Tel – 212 960 5300; Email president@yu.edu

YU law school defends giving award to Israel-hater Jimmy Carter

Here is the official statement from the Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University concerning the award being given to Jimmy Carter next week:

This year student editors of the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution have chosen to honor former President Jimmy Carter with the International Advocate for Peace Award in recognition of his lifetime of work, from the historic Camp David Peace Accord between Israel and Egypt, to monitoring some 90 elections around the world and supporting fledgling democracies to resolve conflicts without violence. The Journal is recognized as one of the premier publications in the field of dispute resolution, and previous Peace Award recipients have included President Bill Clinton, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Senator George Mitchell, John Wallach and Seeds of Peace, playwright Eve Ensler, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Betty Murungi, Ambassador Dennis Ross, and documentary filmmaker Abigail Disney, among others. The students have made this decision based on President Carter's achievements, and we support their right to do so.

It is more than just a mistake for a school that is associated with traditional Judaism and religious Zionism to give an award to Jimmy Carter, no matter what his achievements in conflict resolution. Carter is, simply, anti-Israel.

As I noted, Carter's double standards of how he whitewashes Hamas actions while characterizing Israel's as "apartheid", and his interceding to stop a Nazi war criminal from being deported from the US, may cross the line to indicate that Carter has a real problem with Jews altogether.

Beyond that, how can any Jewish institution stomach the idea of giving an award to this man, smiling as he receives a gift from a mass murderer, that symbolizes that Jews have no rights to their eternal capital?

I hope there are massive protests outside Cardozo's Law School this coming Wednesday at 3 PM. Having YU associated with someone as despicable as Carter cannot be accepted as "one of those things."

(h/t Emet)

Yeshiva U law school to give award to Israel-hater Jimmy Carter (updated)

This is unbelievable: (Sent via email)

The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution is honored to present the
2013 International Advocate for Peace Award to

Jimmy Carter

39^th President of the United States
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
3:30 p.m.

Jacob Burns Moot Court Room

Reception to follow in the lobby
Seating is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.
The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution is honored to present President Jimmy Carter with its annual International Advocate for Peace Award. President Carter will speak on "America as Global Mediator." Jimmy Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981. During his time in office, he oversaw significant foreign policy accomplishments, including the Panama Canal treaties, the Camp David Accords, the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, and the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.
In 1982, President Carter and his wife Rosalynn reinvented the American "post-presidency" by founding the Carter Center. Actively guided by President Carter, the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center addresses national and international issues of public policy. Specifically, the center works to resolve conflict, promote democracy, protect human rights, and prevent disease and other afflictions. President Carter and the Carter Center have engaged in conflict mediation in countless areas around the world, including Ethiopia and Eritrea (1989), Bosnia (1994), the Great Lakes region of Africa (1995-96), Sudan and Uganda (1999), Venezuela (2002-2003), Nepal (2004-2008), and Ecuador and Colombia (2008).

President Carter's post-presidential peace-building efforts were recognized in 2002 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." He is the only American president to receive the Nobel Prize for work done primarily after his time in office.

I couldn't find any press releases but it was confirmed on some ancillary Cardozo sites. Here is the main site for the award, which does not yet mention this .

Perhaps Carter deserves an award for some of his work in Africa and South America, but it is unconscionable for a Jewish - and Zionist - school to honor someone who is so thoroughly anti-Israel and, arguably, anti-semitic.

Shall we go over Carter's ignominious record?

1987: Carter intervened to help a Nazi war criminal.

2006: Carter says that pressuring Hamas economically is immoral - but pressuring Israel economically is desirable.

2006: Jimmy predicts that Hamas will be a peaceful party and that they hadn't had any terror attacks on the previous 18 months, an out and out lie.

2007: Carter quotes a fake Nelson Mandela letter to"prove" Israel is an "apartheid state"

2008: Carter claims that Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death" and received fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.

2008: Jimmy entreats Europe to ignore the official US position on Gaza terrorists and embrace them instead.

2009: Carter says Gazans are "literally starving."

2009: Jimmy reportedly asks Hamas to "Help us to help Obama to overcome the Zionist lobby"

2009: Carter was revealed to have been against a separate Israel/Egypt peace agreement.

2010: Carter praised Palestinian Arab "democracy" but casts doubts on Israel's democracy

2012: Carter blames the Jews for the Christian exodus from Palestine."

2012: Liberal Jimmy Carter has no problem with Islamists in power in Egypt where they can implement misogynist and discriminatory laws according to their religious duties.

2012: Carter says that if Iran has one or two nuclear weapons, it is no big deal.

There's lots more, of course, but the idea that YU's Cardozo should honor Carter is simply sickening.

UPDATE: The contact email for the journal is eic@cardozojcr.com .

The editor-in-chief is here.

UPDATE 2: I found the original notice on Google's cache of the Cardozo site - but it is no longer there. Perhaps they came to their senses before I was sent this? Or were they trying to downplay it? (I just heard that the entire website was re-done, so that might explain it.)

Jimmy says everything is Israel's fault - and ignores basic history

As always:

Former US president Jimmy Carter said on Monday that Washington had “zero” influence over Israel and the Palestinians to resolve their decades-long conflict, and its sway had dropped to the lowest level in 45 years.

Speaking on a tour of east Jerusalem with a group of former world leaders known as “The Elders,” Carter said he was not optimistic that the United States could reassert its influence, and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given up on the two-state solution.

“A major change lately has been the withdrawal of American influence” in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, Carter said, estimating it was the first time since the 1967 Six-Day War that Washington had not “played a major role” in trying to resolve the conflict.

“And when the United States withdraws, of course, that gives Israel a completely free hand to do what it wants,” he said, describing it as a “very serious disappointment.”

Unilateral moves by the Palestinian Arabs that contradict Oslo don't bother Jimmy. No, only what Israel does.

Ireland’s former president Mary Robinson, also a member of The Elders and who was with the group on its last visit exactly a year ago, said the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict appeared to be disappearing.

“What we want to do as Elders is draw attention to the fact that there is a kind of insidious undermining of the possibility of a two-state solution,” she said.

She indicated that every time the group visited, it saw evidence of more settlements, and more east Jerusalem Palestinian homes being taken over by Israelis.

Carter said he thought Netanyahu was no longer interested in a two-state solution to the conflict and was interested only in increasing Israel’s control over the West Bank.

“I think that Netanyahu has decided to abandon the two-state solution,” he said, suggesting the Israeli leader’s policy was now about “taking over the entire West Bank.”

“I think that all the previous prime ministers have been committed to the two-state solution and I don’t believe that that is the case now in Israel,” he said.

As usual, Carter is completely wrong.

While Netanyahu has publicly and repeatedly stated he supports a two-state solution, Yitzhak Rabin, darling of the Left, was adamantly against a Palestinian Arab state - even after Oslo!

As he told Time magazine right after Oslo:

I oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan, and I don't believe that at this stage it would be a good idea if I brought out the options.

And in Rabin's speech shortly before he was assassinated:

We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.

And these are the main changes, not all of them, which we envision and want in the permanent solution:

A. First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev -- as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.

B. The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.

C. Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the "Green Line," prior to the Six Day War.

D. The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

If Netanyahu would make a speech like this today he would be vilified by not only the UN and the EU but by the US as well.

By any objective measure, Netanyahu is more dovish than Rabin was. And similarly, while the Israeli Right has embraced positions that were considered the domain of ulra-left Peace Now in 1993, the Palestinian Arabs have not changed their own hawkish positions in the least.

The revisionist history that canonizes Rabin as the ultimate leftist is one that Jimmy Carter and his ilk love to embrace, but it is a lie. Carter no doubt knows this, but to him it is more important to demonize the current Israeli leadership - and to praise the intransigent Mahmoud Abbas - than to worry about pesky facts.

Jimmy Carter says a couple of Iranian nuclear bombs is no big deal

How immoral can a Nobel Peace Prize winner be?

From Time Magazine, behind paywall, quoted in Huffington Post:

Well, of course, the religious leaders of Iran have sworn on their word of honor that they're not going to manufacture nuclear weapons. If they are lying, then I don't see that as a major catastrophe because they'll only have one or two military weapons. Israel probably has 300 or so.

Only slightly less outrageous: Noam Sheizaf at +972mag -one of the intended victims of any Iranian bomb - shows this same quote from Carter. His takeaway fact is that - warmongering Israel has 300 nuclear weapons, seemingly confirmed as "probably" by an ex-president who hasn't seen any intelligence reports for over three decades.

(h/t Ian)

Jimmy Carter blames the Jooos for Christian exodus from "Palestine"

Yeah, he's an honest broker:

I wonder how he explains all the Christians leaving Egypt, Iraq, and every other Muslim-majority area? It's got to be Israel's fault somehow; I mean, what else could all those Christian populations have in common?

And the fact that Israel's own Christian population is increasing is just more evidence for Israel's evil. You see, they are nice to some Christians in order to cover their seething hate for Christians.

Call it "crosswashing."

It is so obvious, once you know how the sickening Israeli mind works, right? Luckily Jimmy is an expert.

(h/t jzaik)

Jimmy Carter has "no problem" with Islamists in power (ElderToon)

AFP reports:

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter gave the thumbs up on Tuesday to Egypt’s parliamentary elections, saying the people’s will was “expressed accurately.”

“We have been very pleased,” Carter told reporters during a tour of a polling station at the Rod al-Farag girls’ secondary school in a working class district of the Egyptian capital

Asked about Islamists coming to power, Carter said: “I have no problem with that. The U.S. government has no problem with that either.”

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party's platform, when discussing women, says (in Arabic) that it aims to "Ensure that all women get their rights as long as these don’t contradict Islamic Sharia and as long as they are balanced against their duties." Meaning that the FJP is explicitly against equal rights for women.

The platform also criticizes the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Yes, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and supposed defender of human rights - who quit the Southern Baptist Convention because of its stand towards women - has no problem with the most populous Arab nation being controlled by a group whose platform is explicitly against equal rights for women (not to mention its attitude towards Egyptian religious minorities.)

Where is the outrage from Carter's fellow liberals?

Carter's WaPo op-ed proves, again, he is an idiot

A couple of points in Jimmy Carter's op-ed in the Washington Post today calling on the world to embrace an illusory Palestinian Arab "unity" government that is filled with terrorists.

One is that Carter is almost certainly mixing up what he wanted to hear with what he did hear from Khaled Meshal:

In my talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, he said Hamas would accept a two-state agreement that is approved in a Palestinian referendum. Such an agreement could provide mutual recognition — Israel would recognize an independent Palestinian state and Palestine would recognize Israel. In other words, an agreement will include Hamas’s recognition of Israel.

Meshal is not generally a liar, but he is good at stretching the truth to gullible Westerners. He's pretty open about his anti-Israel positions. And what he has said publicly is not that Hamas would accept a two-state solution, but that Hamas would temporarily accept a Palestinian Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza as a first stage towards the destruction of Israel.

There is a world of difference between the two.

In 2006:

[Meshal] promised, "Muslims will take over the world," and he explicitly said his organization's plan is to deceive Israel with semantics.

In his speech, the Hamas leader explained that his people are willing to continue fighting Israel even if it takes 1000 years for victory. Mr. Meshaal also said one aspect of Hamas's current strategy is to rely on such tools as using statements like "we love peace" or "we have given up the option of war," while still planning Israel's destruction.

Mr. Meshaal also promised: "Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. … We will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains."

I have documented plenty of times that Meshal has played these very semantic games to imply recognition of Israel but without actually indicating any desire to do so.

And just today, a Fatah spokesman dismissed any chance of Hamas recognizing Israel:

A Palestinian official close to President Mahmoud Abbas has called the demand that Hamas recognises Israel's right to exist "unfair".

Mr Abbas's government is set officially to sign a reconciliation agreement with Hamas later today in Cairo, despite the terrorist organisation's continued refusal to fulfil US and Middle East Quartet demands to renounce violence and recognise the principle of Israel's legitimacy.

Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Shaath told Israel Radio that the requirements were "unfair, unworkable and [did] not make sense"."

He said all that was necessary was for Hamas to "refrain from any violence ... and be interested in the peace process".

Nice how Fatah has redefined the Quartet's requirements to allow Hamas to maintain its belligerent, intransigent stance. Just like Jimmy!

One other part of Jimmy's op-ed is noteworthy:

If they [the international community] remain aloof or undermine the agreement, the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory may deteriorate with a new round of violence against Israel.

Even Jimmy Carter, who loves peace and loves "Palestine," admits that they will turn to violence if they don't get what they demand.

He's half right. They will turn to violence if they don't get what they want. But they will also turn to violence if they do get what they say they want - because their demands will never end.

Everyone knows what these demands are: releasing all prisoners including the worst terrorists, forcing Israel to allow millions of Arabs to "return", kicking all Jews out of the Old City of Jerusalem and much of the rest of the city as well, and uprooting hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in a massive exercise of ethnically cleansing Jews from their traditional, historic home in Judea and Samaria. These demands have not changed one tiny bit since 1988, over decades of Oslo through years of a terror war.

It is nice to see that Carter admits that Palestinian Arabs are inherently violent. Too bad that this fact is so self-evident that it is not considered a problem anymore for enlightened, peaceful people like Jimmy.

Hamas leader calls on the PLO to withdraw recognition of Israel, increase terror

Hamas' al Qassam website reports that Hamas "prime minister" Ismail Haniyeh is calling on the PLO to withdraw its recognition of "the Zionist entity" and to emphasize terrorism ("resistance.")

Again I quote Jimmy Carter from last Friday:

The Carter Center commends the representatives of Fatah and Hamas for having the vision to begin the process of reunifying the Palestinian people. Mediated by the Government of Egypt, the agreement provides a framework for resolving long-standing issues regarding reform of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian governance, elections, human rights abuses, and the security sector. ...

President Carter said, "This agreement, and the promise of elections in the next twelve months, has the potential to arrest the spiral of intra-Palestinian human rights violations and preserve Palestinian democracy. It can also lead to a leadership representing all Palestinians capable of negotiating peace with Israel. Based on my years of contacts with Fatah and Hamas, I am confident that, if handled creatively and flexibly by the international community, Hamas' return to unified Palestinian governance can increase the likelihood of a two-state solution and a peaceful outcome. I encourage the international community to respect this decision by the Palestinian leadership and to view it as part of the larger democratic trend sweeping the region."

Hamas condemns US for killing Bin Laden (updated)

From AP:

The leader of the Palestinian militant Hamas government in Gaza has condemned the United States for killing al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh says the operation is "the continuation of the American oppression and shedding of blood of Muslims and Arabs."

Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza on Monday that although Hamas had its differences with al-Qaida, his group condemns the assassination of "a Muslim and Arabic warrior" and prays that bin Laden's "soul rests in peace."

(Update: In Arabic he called Bin laden a "mujahid" - a holy warrior.)

This is the group that Jimmy Carter believes is the key to peace.

Based on my years of contacts with Fatah and Hamas, I am confident that, if handled creatively and flexibly by the international community, Hamas' return to unified Palestinian governance can increase the likelihood of a two-state solution and a peaceful outcome.

Jimmy believes that a group that considers Bin Laden a warrior and hero, and that shoots guided missiles at schoolbuses, is going to make peace. What a tool.

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today's headline on Osama Bin Laden's death reads "Martyrdom of "the leader of al Qaeda" bin Laden through a precise operation, and the United States has his body."

Islamic Jihad, it will be recalled, hosted a reconciliation meeting between Hamas and Fatah last week. So they must be a great group by Carter's standards as well, since they also encourage the PA to include radical Islamist terror groups into its government.

Someone should really ask "The Elders" what their official position on the assassination of Bin Laden is. Since their entire shtick is that they are so old that they can speak their minds without any political pressure (sort of like Helen Thomas), it would be most enlightening to see if Carter condemns it as an extrajudicial killing in another country and an illegal act.

A hundred corpses in Daraa. Where's Jimmy Carter? (updated)

From Now Lebanon:

Al-Jazeera television on Friday reported that more than 100 corpses were seen on the streets of Daraa.

“In Daraa, more than 100 bodies have been seen on the roads and more than 150 [people] are missing,” an eyewitness told the TV station.

“Electricity is still cut and there is lack of water supplies and baby milk,” he added.

The eyewitness called on humanitarian organizations to save the people of Daraa.

“People from the villages around Daraa came to support the city but they were shot at by security forces.”

Syria has imposed a siege on Daraa, stopping all travel, communication and humanitarian aid.

The last time Jimmy Carter was in Syria, he eerily predicted this crisis by saying "The blockade is one of the most serious human rights violations on Earth."

Oh, sorry, he was talking about another blockade, one that didn't involve any civilians being targeted. He hasn't said a word about what is going on in Syria for the past month.

In fact, the Carter Center website is curiously silent about all the things happening in the Arab world nowadays. Nothing on Bahrain, Syria, or Yemen, and the only recent mention of Egypt was to congratulate them on helping bring a terrorist group into the Palestinian Authority government.

Could it be because the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given over a million dollars to the Carter Center?

And so has the Saudi BinLadin Group?

And the The Saudi Fund for Development?

And the Government of The United Arab Emirates?

And the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development?

And the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation?

And the The OPEC Fund for International Development?

And the The Sultanate of Oman?

And His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said also of Oman?

No, perish the thought. No doubt Jimmy Carter is not swayed at all in his important humanitarian work by such considerations.

It is more likely that he would never have said a bad word about Arab repression anyway, and this is the reason that he gets so many Arab donors, rather than the other way around.

UPDATE:

In 2009, Jimmy wrote an article on behalf of his team of old busybodies called "The Elders' view of the Middle East." In it he says

During the past 16 months I have visited the Middle East four times and met with leaders in Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza.

Yet the entire article only talks about "Palestine." Apparently the Elders couldn't imagine that their gracious Arab hosts were anything but wonderful to their own people as well.

Carter praises PalArab democracy, slams Israeli democracy

The disgusting old coot keeps on going...

In an interview with a Swiss and Belgian newspaper, Carter brings out all the stops - the Jewish lobby, Hamas as a peaceful democratic partner, Israel as an evil theocratic superpower. The usual.

Translated by Philosemitism:

The Palestinians' situation is as follows: in Israel, they are subject to 35 laws which discriminate specifically non-Jewish citizens, who were denied the right to own land, to marriage, to travel, to have access to medical care and the media. In East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel - the Palestinians are not treated as citizens. The Silwan community, where there are 55,000 Arabs, has no playground and there is no school building. Jerusalem Mayor apologized while explaining that he was planning a tourist and archaeological site there. The Arabs who have lived there for sixty-five years will be forced to leave. In the West Bank, more than 300,000 Israeli settlers have confiscated land and properties off the Palestinians to build their own houses. Finally and even worse, Gaza is like a cage in which 1.5 million Palestinians live, 75% of which are refugees.

Why are the United States so close to Israel?
The same can be said of the Europeans. Firstly, there is a very powerful Israeli political lobby in the United States. Then there is a natural belief that Israel is a great democracy like ours somewhere in the Middle East. Americans see Israel as a small country besieged by hundreds of millions of hostile Arabs - but the truth of the matter is that thanks to the United States Israel has the most advanced military capability in the planet. I must underline that the Carter Center has helped to oversee some 80 problematic elections in the world. The best three elections that we oversaw were in Palestine: when Arafat was elected, the election of Mahmoud Abbas and the 2006 elections. When Hamas won the elections, Israel and the United States said that they were terrorists in order to prevent them from ruling the Palestinian territories while a few months earlier they were considered as legitimate candidates. When I meet with Hamas leaders, they clearly state that they will accept any peace treaty negotiated between Abbas and Israel that is approved by referendum by the Palestinian people.

Don't you think that Israel is a democracy?
They have democratic elections for their own people. But, as I said, they have specific laws that prohibit equal treatment for non-Jews. This includes 1.5 million Arabs (20% of the population) and about 320,000 others who are neither Jewish nor Arab. I'm not saying that Israel is not a democracy, but it is not a democracy like ours.

Not a single bad word for Hamas, and not a single good word for Israel. That's our Dhimmi!

There are also reports that Jimmy told his pals at Al Jazeera - the same network that publicly celebrated 9/11 - that "the continued blockade on the Gaza Strip as one of the worst violations against humanity."

Meanwhile, Fatah and Hamas continue to arrest leaders of the other parties in their respective territories, they suppress any media critical of them, they allow hundreds of thousands of people under their rule to rot in "refugee" camps...and Carter is more than willing to approve of their thugocracies as being brilliantly democratic.

What a tool.